Background

Notes and format last updated Apr 16, 2020

Growth rates

Heat maps

  • The two heat maps below compare how quickly total cases or deaths have grown at various times in our respective geopgraphies.
  • The first plot compares growth rate for total cases; the second, growth rate for total deaths.
  • The metric used is doubling time, by which I mean how quickly total cases or deaths are doubling.
  • The plots track that doubling time at each date for our geographies. Darker colors reflect shorter doubling times, and thus periods of faster growth.
    • You can use the plots to track each geography over time and to compare the geographies to one another.
    • You can also compare the cases and death charts, to see how faster periods of death growth follow faster periods of case growth.

Case growth rates

  • This section charts the growth rate of both total and new cases for each of our respective geographies. Each geography has its own chart, and then that chart will have a trendline for total cases and new cases.
    • There are only plots for the U.S. and states because the numbers for the counties are too small to generate worthwhile trendlines in this section.
  • Each of these two lines using rolling windows to calculate a growth rate for that particular metric. I do the calculation differently for each to smooth out some of large day-to-day discrepancies in new case reporting at the state level.
    • For total cases, the trendlines are a rolling 3-day average of daily growth rates in total cases. We want to see these decline (and almost all are), but they can’t go below zero because total cases can never go down. We at least want them to get as close to zero as possible.
    • For new cases, the trendlines show a rolling 3-day average of daily growth rate in the rolling 7-day average of new cases. Including two rolling periods in this average helps smooth out crazy spikes at the state level that result from large day-to-day changes. Unlike the lines for total cases, we want to watch for the lines for new cases to get consistently below zero and stay there. That means that we are consistently seeing fewer new cases on a daily basis and that we’re on the other side of the “apex.”

U.S.

Our states

Death growth rates

  • This section charts the growth rate of both total and new deaths for each of our respective geographies. Each geography has its own chart, and then that chart will have a trendline for total deaths and new deaths.
    • There are only plots for the U.S. and states because the numbers for the counties are too small to generate worthwhile trendlines in this section.
  • Each of these two lines using rolling windows to calculate a growth rate for that particular metric. I do the calculation differently for each to smooth out some of large day-to-day discrepancies in new death reporting at the state level.
    • For total deaths, the trendlines are a rolling 3-day average of daily growth rates in total cases. We want to see these decline (and almost all are), but they can’t go below zero because total deaths can never go down. We at least want them to get as close to zero as possible.
    • For new deaths, the trendlines show a rolling 3-day average of daily growth rate in the rolling 7-day average of new cases. Including two rolling periods in this average helps smooth out crazy spikes at the state level that result from large day-to-day changes. Unlike the lines for total deaths, we want to watch for the lines for new deaths to get consistently below zero and stay there. That means that we are consistently seeing fewer new deaths on a daily basis and that we’re on the other side of the “apex.”

U.S.

Our states

By population rankings

This section tracks metrics for states and counties normalized for population (number of cases or deaths per million residents), and then compares these figures both for our geographies and the country overall.

States

  • This section shows tables ranking all 50 states for per populations rates of total cases, new cases, total deaths, and new deaths.
  • For each metric, in addition to the tables, the trends for the top states are plotted over time.
    • We only plot the top ten states for each metric so that the plots aren’t too crowded. But you can view the full 50-state rankings in the tables.

Total confirmed cases

Table of total confirmed cases per million residents (all 50 states)
State Cases Per Million
New York 13,223
New Jersey 10,792
Connecticut 6,302
Massachusetts 6,230
Rhode Island 5,513
Louisiana 5,433
District of Columbia 4,542
Michigan 3,397
Delaware 3,286
Pennsylvania 2,871
Illinois 2,770
Maryland 2,443
South Dakota 2,100
Georgia 1,893
Colorado 1,888
Indiana 1,847
Washington 1,646
Mississippi 1,644
Nevada 1,324
Vermont 1,318
Florida 1,317
Ohio 1,207
Virginia 1,202
Iowa 1,193
New Hampshire 1,167
Alabama 1,144
Tennessee 1,128
Utah 1,076
New Mexico 1,053
Missouri 999
California 950
Idaho 944
Nebraska 944
South Carolina 924
North Dakota 891
Wisconsin 832
Arkansas 792
Kansas 786
Kentucky 754
Texas 750
Arizona 749
Oklahoma 731
North Carolina 688
Maine 674
Wyoming 563
West Virginia 523
Oregon 488
Minnesota 482
Alaska 457
Hawaii 413
Montana 410
Puerto Rico 286
American Samoa NA
Guam NA
Northern Mariana Islands NA
Virgin Islands NA

New confirmed cases

Table of new cases per million residents: rolling 3-day average (all 50 states)
State New Cases Per Million
Connecticut 421
New Jersey 396
Rhode Island 357
New York 247
Massachusetts 235
Delaware 226
District of Columbia 195
Illinois 124
Maryland 107
Pennsylvania 98
Louisiana 95
Iowa 89
Michigan 86
South Dakota 84
Georgia 77
Ohio 71
Mississippi 69
Arkansas 67
Virginia 67
Colorado 66
Indiana 60
Nebraska 60
New Mexico 58
California 50
Alabama 48
New Hampshire 48
Kansas 45
North Dakota 41
Tennessee 41
Utah 39
Nevada 36
Washington 32
Florida 30
Kentucky 30
Wisconsin 28
Texas 26
Missouri 25
Arizona 24
Oklahoma 24
South Carolina 24
North Carolina 23
Minnesota 21
Idaho 19
Oregon 11
Maine 9
West Virginia 9
Alaska 8
Wyoming 7
Vermont 5
Hawaii 2
Montana 1
Puerto Rico -31
American Samoa NA
Guam NA
Northern Mariana Islands NA
Virgin Islands NA

Total deaths

Table of total deaths per million residents (all 50 states)
State Deaths Per Million
New York 786
New Jersey 570
Connecticut 433
Louisiana 316
Massachusetts 316
Michigan 281
District of Columbia 179
Rhode Island 170
Pennsylvania 134
Illinois 124
Maryland 104
Indiana 98
Colorado 91
Delaware 91
Washington 91
Georgia 78
Mississippi 64
Vermont 64
Nevada 60
Ohio 52
Florida 43
Oklahoma 42
Wisconsin 42
Kentucky 41
Alabama 40
Virginia 40
Kansas 38
Missouri 38
California 36
New Hampshire 35
New Mexico 33
Arizona 32
Minnesota 31
Idaho 30
Maine 29
Iowa 28
South Carolina 27
Tennessee 25
Nebraska 23
North Carolina 23
Texas 19
North Dakota 18
Oregon 18
West Virginia 16
Arkansas 14
Puerto Rico 14
Montana 13
Alaska 12
South Dakota 10
Utah 10
Wyoming 10
Hawaii 8
American Samoa NA
Guam NA
Northern Mariana Islands NA
Virgin Islands NA

New deaths

Table of new deaths per million residents: rolling 3-day average (all 50 states)
State New Deaths Per Million
Connecticut 38
New Jersey 32
New York 24
Massachusetts 23
District of Columbia 14
Michigan 14
Louisiana 12
Pennsylvania 11
Rhode Island 9
Maryland 8
Delaware 7
Illinois 7
Colorado 6
Georgia 4
Indiana 4
Mississippi 3
Nebraska 3
Nevada 3
Ohio 3
Alabama 2
Arizona 2
California 2
Florida 2
Kentucky 2
Minnesota 2
Missouri 2
New Mexico 2
Oklahoma 2
Virginia 2
Washington 2
Wyoming 2
Idaho 1
Iowa 1
Kansas 1
Maine 1
Montana 1
New Hampshire 1
North Carolina 1
North Dakota 1
South Carolina 1
Tennessee 1
Vermont 1
West Virginia 1
Wisconsin 1
Alaska 0
Arkansas 0
Hawaii 0
Oregon 0
Puerto Rico 0
South Dakota 0
Texas 0
Utah 0
American Samoa NA
Guam NA
Northern Mariana Islands NA
Virgin Islands NA

Counties

  • This section focuses on the county level. It shows tables with our counties ranked by percentile of U.S. counties for per population rates of total cases and total deaths.
    • Each table also shows the top five counties in the country in addition to our counties, for added perspecive.
  • In addition to the tables, our counties’ percentile for both total cases and total deaths are plotted over time.

Confirmed cases

Table showing total cases per million and percentile for all US counties. Includes our counties and the top 5 in the US for perspective.
County State Cases Per Million Raw Ranking Percentile
New York New York 87,457 1 99
Lincoln Arkansas 39,312 2 99
Marion Ohio 32,830 3 99
Rockland New York 29,771 4 99
Pickaway Ohio 28,363 5 99
Davidson Tennessee 2,826 196 93
Richland South Carolina 1,744 396 87
Pierce Washington 1,379 514 83
York South Carolina 591 1194 61
Orange California 552 1261 59

Our county percentiles over time

Deaths

Table showing total deaths per million and percentile for all US counties. Includes our counties and the top 5 in the US for perspective.
County State Deaths Per Million Raw Ranking Percentile
New York New York 6,517 1 99
Randolph Georgia 2,508 2 99
Terrell Georgia 2,110 3 99
Nassau New York 1,300 4 99
Toole Montana 1,267 5 99
Pierce Washington 44 658 79
Richland South Carolina 36 767 75
Davidson Tennessee 32 830 73
Orange California 11 1186 62
York South Carolina 11 1187 62

Our county percentiles over time

Raw counts

Total confirmed cases

U.S.

Our states

Our counties

New confirmed cases

U.S.

Our states

Our counties

Total deaths

U.S.

Our states

Our counties

New deaths

U.S.

Our states

Our counties

Stay-at-home comparisons